


Family Ties

by jumpfall



Category: One Day at a Time (TV 2017)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 10:52:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17723804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jumpfall/pseuds/jumpfall
Summary: Lydia moves Schneider in for a little Alvarez family support. [Spoilers for Season 3.]





	Family Ties

**Author's Note:**

> Spoiler warning for the entirety of Season 3.
> 
> Content warnings apply for the associated topics (addiction, alcohol abuse, recovery.)

Penelope finds Schneider on the couch when she gets home from work that night, the fingers of one hand drumming out a stacatto rhythm on his thigh. This would not be an unusual sight but for the fact that he stands when she puts her keys down, and they've never been one for formality.

The curtain slides open, and Lydia points a warning figure at him. "Sit."

"I should--."

"Did you not hear me?" Lydia says, but there's something soft in her tone, too. When Penelope looks over at her, Lydia shakes her head in a quick motion, lips pursed tight, so carefully quiet when her normal approach is loud and proud that Penelope looks back to Schneider. The faint feeling that something is off finally takes a foothold, and she realizes that this energy is not his normal state of hyperactive goofball but skittishness instead. It feels so wrong that she reaches a hand out before she can stop herself, "You heard Mami, sit."

He does, sinking back down slowly. Now that she's looking for it, the spare comforter is folded neatly at the end of the couch and there's a bag of stuff at Schneider's feet. 

"Help me with the groceries?" she says, gesturing for Lydia to follow her into the kitchen. She squeezes Schneider's shoulder as she walks past, but he doesn't look up.

"Schneider is going to be staying awhile," Lydia says without prompting as soon as they cross over the threshold.

Penelope sighs. "Look, I get it, I really do, but there's not a lot of space--."

"Then he can have my room."

"Your room that's my dining room? Where does that leave you?"

"Either he stays here tonight, or I start moving boxes upstairs after dinner. I don't know if all my clothes will fit, but I'm sure we'll make do."

"Mami, don't you think you're being a little--."

"No!" Lydia cuts her off, and Penelope stops, turns away from the counter where she is unpacking vegetables to face her directly. "He is family, Lupe, and he needs us."

She looks through the window into the other room at Schneider, who's still abnormally quiet. It's been a week since they went to an AA meeting together, the night that Alex found him in the laundry room. He's been at least once a day since; Dr. Berkowitz has brought him most nights, but Elena had made a point of driving him last night.

"You need a licensed driver over the age of 25 in the car with you," Penelope had said.

"Schneider's my adult," she had replied, and Schneider had frozen in the doorway with his jacket half-on, attention utterly fixed on the stubborn expression on Elena's face. Penelope had made a point of having a quiet conversation with each of her kids after that night, Alex in particular, to unpack the emotions surrounding Schneider's relapse and explain that it was okay if they were uncomfortable his actions or with him for a little while. This wouldn't have been the first time they had seen addiction up close and personal, but Schneider's sobriety has -- had -- been a constant for almost as long as they've known him; it's the first time they would have seen it from him.

Penelope had hesitated, stalling to figure out exactly how to phrase the question that needed to be asked. Elena was ahead of her there, too, and had accomplished her goal by the time Penelope realized the point she was trying to make. Elena turned to Schneider and looked him straight in the eye. "Schneider, have you had a drink today?"

A flush rose in his cheeks, but Elena stared him down, unflinching. "No," he said at last, and a smile lit up her face.

"Good enough for me," she said. "Schneider's my adult," she repeated, taking the keys off the hook, waiting for any last objections. There was still a piece of Penelope that was worried, but it was the same piece that worried about lead paint in the homes of her kids' friends. Elena was 17, and had a good head on her shoulders, and Penelope had never been more proud of her than in that moment.

"Schneider," she calls out to him in the present from the kitchen, waiting for him to look up and meet her eyes. Between the fingers he'd been drumming when she'd walked in, he's been fiddling with his one week chip, flipping it over each knuckle with careful precision. 

It's not an official AA chip but the one Alex had made for him in shop class, so he could take custody of the 24 hour chip to update the Alvarez family museum. "We were proud of your eight years," Alex had said, both chips resting in the palm of his hand, "and we're proud of your one day, too."

"Come make your paella, Mami still hasn't taught me the recipe yet," Penelope says at last. 

"I can stay?" Schneider says at last. He sounds surprised, and there Penelope wonders how he could doubt their love for him after all this time. She's said some things she regrets in the heat of the moment, but families fight. It isn't pleasant, but it is natural. He is not the man she would have chosen as family -- a little spoiled, a little privileged, a little naive -- but none of that matters now. It hasn't for a long time. He is theirs to protect, and protect him they will. That's what Alvarezes do.

"Of course you can stay," she says at last. "You're family, this is your home."


End file.
